Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is going badly, could get worse and may yet end with him reliving the last days of Nicholas II.
What’s an ambitious but rubbish autocrat to do? Play the nuclear blackmail card, of course. The possibility that a truly desperate Putin may break a long-established international taboo against using nukes on a battlefield has the foreign policy commentariat wondering if he might really do it. And if he does, how Russia’s otherwise complacent elites might react.
As the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Tatiana Stanovaya writes in Foreign Affairs:
Putin’s nuclear ultimatum and mobilization order put significant pressure on both Russian society and the increasingly nervous Russian elites, who must decide which losing scenario is less tragic: to accompany the furious leader until the end of the world, to escape both Putin and the retribution of the West, or to wait for Russia to lose. It puts Putin in an unprecedentedly vulnerable position. Most of the Russian elite does not share his obsession with Ukraine to the same extent, and much of his own electorate does not share his readiness to sacrifice thousands of Russian lives. He appears to be pushing a scenario in which he is the only one who has the capacity to pay whatever price it takes, to fight under the banner of “all or nothing.” The president’s manic course of action carries a distinct and bitter taste of suicidal exasperation.
Not exactly a recipe for success, never mind mobilizing society to follow his lead. But Stanovaya says things could get worse because “however cornered Putin may seem, he still believes he can win.”
And it’s that delusion that will force a choice on those Russians who have long preferred to allow Putin to do what he wants, so long as order, security, and prosperity were maintained at home:
…the pivotal moment will arrive when the only option Putin sees available to him is the nuclear one. It will also be a decisive moment for the Russian elites who still do not dare to countenance this worst-case scenario, something that many today avoid thinking about. Domestic political conditions may be reaching the point where senior officials would dare to disobey, speak out louder, and fight with each other more resolutely. Ukraine may become a poison pill for Putin: in seeking to swallow it, he is dooming himself to defeat.
We should hope and work to make sure Putin is defeated – not negotiated with, appeased or otherwise left anywhere close to the levers of power and destruction.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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Pray that Russian elites remove Putin and his threats for the preservation of mankind. No one man should have this power – he is not God.
Yes, they should remove him, but will they do it before he makes good on his nuclear threat? As unbalanced as he is, he could go off the deep end at any time, especially with the defeats on the battlefield his military is suffering. We, as well as the rest of the NATO countries, should be prepared as to what action they will take when Putin follows through on his threat.
Lets Pray that American elites come to the same conclusion about Biden and remove him from the levers of power also.
Putin was there when Half Bright and Clinton bombed Slavs into subnission in Belgrade. He is not going to let that happen to a Russian city and he has learned the hardway no agreement with NATO US or EU can be trusted. And who instituted a bloody coup to oust the elected leader in Ukraine whose sin was doing business’s with Russia and declining servitude to Brussels?
Russia is a terrible man but he is pure Russian. He knew the risk of entering Ukraine. Better to fight now than later with a NATO member armed with nukes on his border interdicting his key port on Crimea. You know like what England and France should have done when Hitler marched into the Ruhr. Or Japan blew up the train in Manchuria. Sixty five billion reasons from America give great credence to his view. Any questions?
Tsar Vladimir I, not by Divine right but by KGB might.